And I’m glad I did, because it’s been really cool seeing the responses on GeekDad, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, and realizing that hey, I struck a nice nostalgic nerve with this one.

We even made the official DailyD&D!

I didn’t want to overload the GeekDad post with pictures, so here are a couple images from the cartoon’s closing credits that I mentioned. Still gorgeous and a little sad, somehow – but in that good sort of way. (And I think I figured out why I love them so much. It’s an amusement park at dusk. Weak spot.)

Like this:

I watched a lot of M*A*S*H when I was a kid, although I admit I have no recollection of differentiating between new episodes and reruns airing in syndication. Much of the show’s serious themes went over my head, I’m sure, but I loved the characters and the snappy dialogue and the humor. (Another admission: On a visit to my grandma’s once, I tried to watch the original movie, but I lost interest when I saw that it had different actors than the TV show. I never have watched it.)

I seem to remember my parents liking the show, too, so it was kind of a big deal when the final episode aired – thirty years ago today – Feb. 28, 1983. I was 12 years old, so I literally could not remember a time when M*A*S*H was not on TV.

The whole opening sequence of Goodbye, Farewell and Amen – with Hawkeye in psychiatric treatment and relating the story about the bus and the chicken and the baby – really threw me off, because it wasn’t like the M*A*S*H I was used to watching at all.

It did settle back onto more familiar ground. And this was my first “big finish” to a TV show, so I got really caught up in the emotions of all the characters saying goodbye and wrapping up their storylines, and when it was over, I felt a little sad.

Honestly, it doesn’t match up to my memory, but then again, I’m pretty sure I was only three (maybe four) years old when mom took me to the local TV station in Lima, Ohio so I could climb into the Birthday Chair and stick my hand in the Penny Jar. I had seen other kids do this on TV – it was a locally-hosted kids’ show – and the fact that I was going to be ON TELEVISION just blew my preschool mind.

Of course, I didn’t actually get to see myself on TV, but I think I remember Dad telling me he had watched, and I tried to imagine what it had looked like on that black and white TV in our living room.

I remember only snapshots of the experience: Only the faintest memory of host Easter Straker, and over the years, the chair had morphed in my memory into something like one of those red and gold Santa thrones. I have a vague recollection of finding it odd that the studio was kind of a plain room with just this one corner decorated for the show. But I do remember reaching into that penny jar, and being disappointed that my fist couldn’t scoop up a jingling mini-pile of coins, Scrooge McDuck fashion.

My post about Giant John brought the memories to the surface again and inspired me to do a quick Google search for something like: Lima + Ohio + TV + show + birthday + chair, and I was just amazed when it returned that page from the Allen County Museum.

I recognized the song, of course, but didn’t think any further on it until a couple days later, when I listened to The Nerdist podcast with Danica McKellar – which happened to include a long tangent on Tom Lehrer’s music and revealed to me that Lehrer was actually responsible for two songs from The Electric Company that, over the years, have occasionally popped up in fragmented form in the back of my mind.

Of course I had to look them up on YouTube, and the music and animation are as loaded with 1970s childhood goodness as Garanimals and Fisher-Price schoolbuses:

In early 2011, not long after I got hooked on Eureka, I wrote a post about the show for GeekDad, which elicited a brief note from Andrew Cosby, one of the show’s co-creators. We exchanged a few emails over the course of the year, and this week, I published a full-on GeekDad interview with him. I really enjoyed working with him on this – please go enjoy it!

I’m wrapping up my teasers to the expanded electronic edition of Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek with a clip from my Star Wars Celebration V interview with Star Wars: The Clone Wars Supervising Director Dave Filoni. This excerpt runs about three minutes, and features Dave talking about how the cartoon series ties not only back to the original 1977 film, but how he works to connect the story with different generations of fans.

Since it seems likely that the recent holiday season has led to a few new owners of e-book readers and tablet computers, I figure it’s a good time to offer a fun glimpse at of some of the material that sets the Hukilau edition apart from the original paperback. I also figure people who like to talk and read about Star Wars would also enjoy listening to people who work on Star Wars projects geek out a little bit about it.

My first sample comes from a recorded interview with Dee Bradley Baker, the voice of Captain Rex – and the entire Clone Army – on Star Wars: The Clone Wars. (Also Perry the Platypus on Phineas and Ferb, Squilliam Fancyson on SpongeBob SquarePants and a ton of other voices on really cool cartoons.) We chatted in the press room at Star Wars Celebration V back in 2010, and in this two-minute clip, he talks a little about the things that inspired him as a kid, and about seeing The Empire Strikes Back for the first time.

About

I tell stories, true and otherwise.

More? Northeast Ohioan. Dad. Brachiopod hunter. Semi-casual runner. Geek. Writer for 30+ years; started getting paid for it in 1995. A decade as a full-time reporter, columnist and blogger. Freelance projects for magazines, radio and online outlets.

More? My racing name on our pirated Commodore 64 copy of The Great American Cross Country Road Race was Lamborghini Lyle. After the day I finally knocked off the computer-driven All-American Al and took first place, the game never worked again. Sore loser.